


Unbreakable

by LadyMaigrey



Series: Reclaiming the Martyr [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Japanese Rope Bondage, Nightmares, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rope Bondage, Shibari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 17:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMaigrey/pseuds/LadyMaigrey
Summary: Everything would’ve been back to their insane version of ‘normal’, except Matt still couldn’t sleep through the night.





	Unbreakable

**Author's Note:**

> I set out to write a nice fluffly rope-bondage-as-therapy story, and then Matt went and screwed it up! More angst than fluff here.
> 
> This is really a "missing chapter" out of "10,000 Hours". I didn't want to hold it up to write this, so wrote it later.

Everything would’ve been back to their insane version of ‘normal’, except Matt still couldn’t sleep through the night. The nightmares came and coated him with sweat, tossing him up at 2 or 3 AM, filling him with terror that turned into anxious frustration and awakened the Devil. Tight-lipped, red-rimmed eyes hidden behind the mask, Matt would stalk out and rain hell on the Kitchen’s underbelly.

He would drag himself back in around 6 AM, and though he stubbornly hid his exhaustion, Karen could see the slight discoordination of his movements; the thrown out hand brushing the doorjamb that told her of the lack of specificity in the input of his senses. Even then, this would’ve been manageable, if he didn’t insist on marching through the workday without any rest, sometimes finishing late in the evening, only for the cycle to repeat itself in the middle of the night. On the weekends – he didn’t even try to sleep, insisting that the drunken revelries required him to be on watch from dusk till dawn, and he was hardly getting any rest during the commotion of the day.

Karen could catalogue the mounting toll on the canvas of his body. Barely a night went by without new purple-black patches appearing on his arms, legs, sides. His ribs were taped to support the fractures. His lips were permanently split. Karen, herself, came within a hair of trying to knock him out and dragging him to the hospital on the morning when he had staggered in, blood running between his fingers pressed to the back of his neck, soaking his suit. She was certain that she would’ve succeeded had she given in to the temptation, but he talked her down, pressed a bottle of whiskey into her hand and taught her how to stitch flesh instead.

Since then he tried to remain home some of the nights at least, channelling the restlessness into his case work, which left him with residual frustration bubbling just under his skin. Both Karen and Foggy refused to walk on eggshells around him though, unafraid to call him on it when his sarcastic prickliness chafed them. Still, Matt could not let off steam in the safety of their company and headed out the next night nearly shaking with pent-up rage.

He told her, with a hung head, that he simply was not proficient enough in meditation to be able to work through the aftermath of nightmares. Karen had a different silent theory: that he was too exhausted to meditate, and knew that the attempt would send him straight into the claws of the next night-terror.

He balked at restarting the medication that helped keep the nightmares at bay, insisted that the subtle fuzziness it left on the edges of his senses was too much of a liability in a brawl.

One night Karen took his rage into herself, pushing the Devil’s buttons with her fist in his hair, her teeth drawing blood out of his lips, her hand grabbing and stroking between his legs until she broke past all of his reservations. He pinned her down then, with his palm between her shoulder-blades and a bruising hand on her wrists; mercilessly ground her into the silk sheets with his hips, growling with each thrust, caring nothing for her satisfaction, until he came with a sound that was more a yell of defiance than release.

He collapsed against her then, shaking arms snaking underneath her, rolling her over to lie against his heaving chest: the Devil was sated, but the guilt price was almost worse than the nightmares. She felt hot hitching breath against her neck and a litany of “Karen, I am sorry …” in her ear. For several moments she failed to understand what he was so distraught about, until she twisted and saw his shame-ridden face. It took nearly the rest of the night for her to convince him that he had her full consent; that taking rough pleasure, freely given, was not a betrayal, not a sin.

He did sleep after – and, in that, she considered it a win - but the next day all his actions around her were careful, as if preparing for her to walk out any minute. He made love to her the next night, setting her on a glorious rollercoaster with his tongue and fingers and cock that she basked in, despite sensing the near-desperation of his need to worship her. She took him with her over the final crest and drop, and he fell asleep pressed against her arms, buried deep inside her, but she knew her body could not provide a lasting shield. He woke up arching his back against the remembered flail.

* * *

Her idea was simple. Gradual exposure to the trigger of his torment helped him overcome the paralysing effects of adrenaline. Chances were that the same trick would work here. Except – this trigger was physical, and, as Karen guessed, it was agitating something so deep-seated and visceral to Matt’s being, that mere talk was not reaching it. Also, she was no shrink, but in her years of exile, she observed, picked up and put into practice skills and ideas she never dreamed of in her provincial home town. Not all of those brought good memories, but Karen firmly believed that all knowledge was an asset.

“What if we tried to… create a situation that put you into that headspace?”

Matt paused in the act of wiping the kitchen counter, his hand pressed down on the dishcloth, head cocked in her direction.

“You mean, deliberately make me feel helpless?”

“Yes, but where you’ll also know you are safe.”

He remained still for long seconds, his face unreadable.

Finally, and flatly: “How?”

“Well… ropes.”

“You want to tie me up?”

She covered for the blood rushing to her cheeks with flippancy, “I wasn’t exactly thinking of it for _my_ benefit, but now that you mention it…”

His lips quirked in an absent-minded half-smile, but he again remained silent, his fingers drumming on the benchtop. Karen watched the rise and fall of his chest in lieu of hearing his heartbeat. The rhythm had sped up considerably as he thought and weighed, but eventually he nodded.

“OK. I trust you. When? Tonight?”

Karen bit her lip, trying to control her own heartrate now.

“No, give me a couple days. And you need to be in a state that is less than completely exhausted.”

“Alright,” he turned to the sink, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll take Thursday afternoon off and try to get some rest.”

* * *

He was true to the intention of his words, though less-than-successful in the execution. The restlessness of having unexpected leisure, in the midst of a frantic New York workday, bounced him around their apartment, permitting no sleep (not that he dared to even try) and no true relaxation (he spent a dutiful hour attempting to arrange his senses into a meditative order and quit in disgust after catching himself obsessively scanning the streets for the tenth time).

For some reason that disturbed him in its inexplicability, he was expecting himself to freeze again, though he had not done so for almost a year.

He recognised her pace and scent, and latched onto Karen’s heartbeat even before she entered the building. As his breathing began to naturally settle around it, he understood the source of his fear.

She came in bearing a cloth bag she had not departed with and placed it by the couch, but beyond that, and the fact that they shared no wine or beer between them, their evening did not appear to deviate from a hundred others they spent together - a simple fresh meal and a quiet conversation. Underneath the appearances, though, he felt her apprehension: her pulse racing away at random, the harsh sharpening of her natural scents and the undertone of bitterness.

He put a hand on hers, “You are worried. We don’t have to,” and heard the tiny smile in her voice as she responded, “I am, but so are you, and since when has that stopped us? Unless, you don’t think that it can help…”

He shook his head, “I am not sure _what_ I will feel exactly, but I am not … looking forward to it. And that tells me you may be right. This may help,” he paused, swallowed, “or, at the very least, it may drag up something concrete enough for me to be able to understand, to deal with. Not just rattle around in my dreams.”

She nodded, ran her hand down his sweatshirt-covered arm. “Change into something soft that won’t bunch up.”

When he came back out of the bedroom, she was standing in the middle of their living area, a pile of cushions spread on the floor behind her, the cloth bag next to them, her body temperature rising as soon as she saw him, and he permitted himself a smirk.

“Are you trying to distract me, Murdock, or just side-step the purpose of this?” the exasperation in her tone was at odds with her heartbeat.

“Not at all,” he spread his arms out, still smiling, “tonight, I am fully in your hands.”

She wasn’t close enough for him to tell for sure, but there was probably an eye-roll to go with that huff of breath. Then she was next to him, taking another deep breath – this one calming, settling – holding him by the hand and leading him up to the splatter of pillows.

Her hands – cool and soft - slid up the skin-hugging black fabric to his shoulders.

“Sit or kneel… just be sure you are comfortable.”

The brief amusement allowed him to tamper down his nerves, but now the first test of them had snuck upon him, and he knew that he failed as he sank down to sit cross-legged, despite telling himself that a meditative position was the sensible choice.

Karen was the one to kneel in front of him, her fingers drawing hitching lines back down his arms to rest above his wrists, her body radiating the intensity that he imagined in her gaze.

“This is all entirely in your control. There are no … safewords. If you need me to stop, or pause, just say it … We can always try again another time.”

He nodded and lost the touch of one of her hands, as she pulled the bag towards her and reached inside it. Then it was back, and he felt a ribbon of something soft, supple – almost fluffy - wrap around the ridged, stretched and warped skin of his left wrist, the end being tucked into the sleeve of his top. Her movements, jerky and tentative at first, firmed up into a slow sure cadence that settled over the churning in his adrenaline-spiked blood. His hand was lifted and her lips brushed his calloused knuckles in a promise of kindness, before placing it gently to rest on his folded leg and picking up his right hand.

He closed his eyes, searching for the tension among his muscles, consciously loosening them. Karen’s joints creaked and snapped as she rocked back to stand up, keeping her contact with a touch on his shoulder, moving around to settle again behind him, close, softness just out of reach, a warm breeze tickling his nape. Another second of delving into the bag, the sudden tensing of her fingers against him, a rasping hiss, and a slap of leather against concrete.

His eyes flew open, flesh contracting around his spine, but the hand on his shoulder lost its momentary harshness, and her other hand lifted, kneading and soothing him, rubbing the shock from his system.

Her hands continued their strokes down his arms to close around his wrists. “Breathe,” he heard the air shift against his ear, scents of honey and pepper and fluoride prickling at his sinuses, and obeyed with long inhales and slow exhales. The cushion of her breasts spread a nimbus of warmth at his back.

Inhale. Exhale. A tug brought his arms behind him, one hand now clasping both of his wrists, the warmth fading. Inhale. Exhale. The double strands of rope wound in a figure eight, resting against the soft wrappings, the roughness diluted. Inhale. The knot was fastened at the rope’s crossing, tightening, cutting in, bringing his hands closer together.

Exhale too quickly.

He curled his fingers up, reaching, but the knot was too high. There was a hitch as he drew in the next breath, heart or lungs or his imagination stuttering with the need to strain and twist. He laced his fingers together, reminded himself that he couldn’t do that before, and the pressure lessened. He let his breath out easier, smoother.

Inhale; and the rope ran up against his spine, pressed and held there between his shoulder-blades, its filaments puncturing the fabric, tearing his skin, droplets running back down to his wrists. He arched, gasped, felt Karen shift her hand and the rope to his shoulder. He realised that it was tickling him. It smelled of wood, and their laundry detergent - not iron - but his exhale was still shaky.

Inhale, focusing on her paused hands splayed against his back; exhale, scraping the control back together. Inhale, exhale – slower, steadier, shoulders and head dropping, her hand drawing calming circles, knitting together the ghostly echoes into the present whole. Inhale, exhale…

“You OK? Do you want me to stop?”

Matt shook his head, concentrating on the steady flow of air.

“OK, I am going to wrap it around you.”

Inhale. The warmth and scent enveloped him as she kept the rope anchored with a palm against his right shoulder, while she embraced him with her left arm. Exhale - fingers reaching, grasping, her nimble hand reversing its course along his chest - a caress trailing a thick web strand. Inhale, and she tightened the strand around his shoulders, the anchor point again hard between his shoulder-blades. He concentrated on the staccato pulse within her palm. Exhale. The web’s direction was now reversed to wind her arm and rope back around his chest. Inhale. Exhale. Reverse for the third time – the rope’s triple-strength weighing against his breastbone, pressing a thick brand into his shoulders, goading him into fighting for his next breath. Slim fingers slipped between the rope and the fabric over his skin, levering out the unevenness, smoothing the brand into a firm hug and brushing away the pain. Inhale – slow, slower. Exhale. 

He followed the white noise of the cotton, fibres hooking and popping against each other, contained by the rhythm of Karen’s hands as she ran the rope over his arms, locking it around the keystone strand along his spine. The touch of her fingers was firm and flowing, broadcasting to him her binding movements, allowing him to coax his reluctant body to relax with her promise of predictability. His breathing came easier, fell in with her pattern: inhale as she laid the rope, exhale as it was pulled through itself to tighten above his elbows. Inhale again. Exhale. He felt himself approaching the familiar state of calm alertness of meditation as he followed the next twist, tracing it along his forearms, examining his incapacitation without paying attention to the nightmares that coalesced in ambush. Inhale. Exhale.

Karen’s hands slowed, the rope in them short, its journey over his body ending where it started - at his wrists. He now had a choice. He could lie back into the warmth, allow her heartbeat to weave safety around him as her fingers had woven his helplessness, let his body accommodate the bonds as an extension of her embrace, and banish the monster’s presence… at least for now. That was, after all, her plan that became theirs’, and his hidden fears had proved unfounded – the sensations had tried, but had not succeeded in hijacking his mind. Yet, if there was a key that would let him out of his nightly chamber of horrors, he now suspected that it would not be found in desensitized comfort.

Inhale. Exhale. Swallow.

He twisted his hands experimentally and pulled them apart, first feeling the rope’s bite and burn through the flannel ribbon, and then the frozen numbness in his fingers as the unbreached blood vessels shrank away from his vulnerable skin. He heard the wet flapping of the torn shreds around his swollen and seeping wrists, the shrill of the strung-out tendons within his arms, the crackle of disintegrating cartilage in his shoulders. He jerked his head, physically dislodging the associations crowding him before he heard the voice of the monster or the creak of the lash.

He found his breathing rhythm was shot to hell anyway. His heartbeat was rabbiting in terror. Karen’s was also, and he could feel his tension infecting her through the vibration of the thin layer of air between them. 

Fuck this! He did not want to do this! He spent months doing all he could, short of chemical intervention, to banish these thoughts, which mostly did stay where they belonged, deep within the ninth circle of his mind… except when he thrashed and whimpered in the night, leaving the sheets soaking wet, his head heavy and feverish with the need to spit out the powerless violence within.

The pain, the helplessness, the loss of every chance and hope of redemption – he had bowed in acknowledgement of them all, forced himself to accept these as a now-permanent part of his makeup, divulged them in the confessional, inflicted them on both Foggy and Karen, yet none of these acts of exorcism were enough. He felt the crux locked in his mind, lost among the fading tendrils of every sharp awakening.

Matt took a deep a breath, filling his lungs to their capacity, flexing all of his muscles beneath the ropes and turned towards the onrushing memories. The pressure immediately turned barbed with the tension, and he felt thick hands squeezing his wounded flesh in a parody of comfort. His fingernails cut into his palms, his breath whooshed back out, and his throat was too closed to draw it in again. Liquid poured from his eyes, welled out of his pores, sprayed out of the burst capillaries, streamed down the flayed channels. He jerked his head up, stretching his neck, working his mouth, reaching and gasping for the air that barely trickled into his lungs as it filtered past the choking metal and snot, squeezed between the molecules of musk, festering sweat and cologne, burned out his gullet.

The hands kneaded his shoulders, agitated the pattering of droplets into quick showers, coaxed the agony into scales unknown to medical science. The stench grew moist, washed against his neck, ear, cheek, gagging and strangling him with bile, ushering a voice that was unexpectedly all too humane – a deep wave of understanding and patience and praise that raised itself from beyond the odor and the pain. A simple promise; a response to the prayers of a blind child in a blood-spattered alley; the wrist threaded through an ice-cream cone wrapper; the righteous shattering of bone; the smothering blanket over the flickering embers.

He shook - too hard for the ropes and chain holding him; too much for the fading hands; too warm for the remains of his blood and skin.

Sourness of steel again, untarnished, fresh and sharp behind him; sawing motions that he should not have been able to remember; coarse fibers sliding over his fingers and falling; still shaking, air rasping over his vocal chords, his face wet. He tried to inhale, still expecting to choke, falling into a coughing fit instead, as the draft overwhelmed his lungs.

He became aware of the hold of Karen’s clenched arms at the same time he realised he was sobbing.

* * *

It was Karen’s turn to whisper an endless stream of remorse into his ear as he quaked against her, spasmodically clutching at her hands, his throat working and failing to stem his tears. She stared at the shears lying on the floor, at the littering of rope, and berated herself for even initiating this travesty, let alone permitting it to get this far. It took endless minutes for his trembling to subside enough; for her to encourage him onto his feet and walk the three steps to the couch. She left him alone only for the span of time it took to grab a bottle of a homemade concoction of squeezed lemon juice, honey, salt and water out of the fridge, and urge it into his hand. He drank through the hiccups, and she resettled herself against his side, silent now, eyes watching through her own tears, ready to soothe, ready to keep distance, hoping guilt wouldn’t crush her before she did what she could to help fix this.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Matt’s voice was hoarse and unsteady, fading out as if he still did not have enough air in his lungs to waste on sound. Although, apparently, he had enough emotions to waste on trying to make her feel better. Karen’s fingers curled and dug into her palms, and his hand immediately landed on top of her self-punishing fists.

“It wasn’t. It worked… would’ve worked. I s-suh…” – he took another sip, tried to clear his throat, suffered through another coughing fit, with Karen rubbing circles into his back again, her other hand laced with his.

He found a moment of synchronicity between his breathing and voice to finish, “There’s nothing you could do to me that would harm me. That I wouldn’t accept. I sabotaged this. I let it happen.”

Matt leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, and Karen could do nothing but wait, watching the deep lines at the corners, the lilac grey shadows under them, the skin slightly crinkled from the trailing salt.

When he spoke again, his voice was almost whisper-quiet, “I remember the pain. I cannot find the words to describe it, and, maybe if I did, I’d be able to make better sense of … of other things… but I am glad I don’t. I don’t want to give it any more... life. As it is, every ache... the memory of why - it is right there in my body … You were right you know - the way my senses work… so much depends on what I feel, that my memories are almost - I don't know - kinetic, maybe? But I can deal with that. I can block them. I can choose to not travel down that path … at least while I am awake. And that's not what keeps me awake. It’s not even about being helpless… not just that…”

Matt fell silent, and, again, Karen began to wonder if he took a turn into the subterranean paths of his mind, and would allow her to glimpse nothing else. But she was wrong, though it took her a second to catch up with his thoughts.

“I’ve met, and helped the cops to put away, some truly… disturbed… individuals. There was this woman - I got her an Order of Protection against her boyfriend, while the cops were gathering the evidence. Daredevil aided them there,” she saw his lips curve up in the shadows, “but, this guy… He liked to smoke in bed. Used to put his cigarettes out on her. Inside of her. He just liked to hear her scream…”

Karen couldn’t help flinching, and clamped down, hoping that her response would not interrupt him, but Matt appeared to be consumed by his words.

“That’s all Fisk wanted. All he was really after. Not just revenge. Not even a punishment for tumbling him off his throne. He simply wanted to listen; to see me bleed and struggle. Watch me give up. He …” Matt swallowed, “He really loved that. I could smell him.”

It came before she could stop her tongue, “Oh my god, Matt! Did… did he…”

He lifted his head and turned it, his gaze seeming to slide past their hands on her lap.

“Did he rape me? No. He didn’t need to. He just needed my skin. And the whip. He wasn’t even… very good at it. Not at first. He kept missing with some… parts of it. Tails. Whatever they were. Sometimes they bruised, instead of cutting. He laughed then… like he had all the time in world to get the practice.”

His smile was tight and bitter.

“He kept talking to me… talking _at_ me, really. How I deserved this for dragging his city into even greater disrepute and lawlessness with my vigilantism and my half-measures. He was in full agreement with Castle there; in favor of the more permanent and decisive solutions. I kept expecting him to get mad, to lose control, to hit harder… maybe to make a mistake and end it… before he wanted it to. But he never did. Between each phrase, he just kept swinging.” Matt's breath shuddered and he stopped, blinking. Karen could almost see the poison welling up from inside of him and wondered whether she should be glad for him or petrified.

“He got better at landing the blows," Matt resumed, voice leveling out again, becoming matter-of-fact, "He was methodical. Shoulder, shoulder, spine … It was like a wave that he controlled and made sure it left no part of my back untouched. He seemed to have endless stamina … and he just kept _talking_. I can’t remember everything he said. I think he was talking about the meals at Rikers… said he had a personal chef… I couldn’t tell if he was lying. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing hard. He must’ve been. He’d been going for… a long time. All I could hear was the voice. Deep voice. It carried. It echoed, so I could hear it coming from everywhere. Like the voice of God. That’s what he told me, you know, before he began - that he was God’s punishment. I knew he was just trying to get under my skin... no pun intended…” He paused and huffed out a grim chuckle, before whispering, “I think, by the end though… maybe I believed him. At the very least, I thought he was an instrument…”

Matt sighed and went silent again, his head falling back onto the couch’s leather, eyes seeming to search for answers from beyond the ceiling. His voice limped when it returned.

“I tried to … tune the pain out, so I could focus on the ropes. Try to break them. Even one would’ve been enough. But – it was simply too … continuous…. I thought I knew pain’s dimensions; turns out, I had no idea ... I couldn’t breathe through it … I couldn’t get enough air past the collar. He kept knocking me off balance. I couldn't even try to meditate. I tried to use the rhythm of his blows, but… I couldn’t really think straight by then.” His hand clenched in hers, blunt nails digging into her knuckles. “He must’ve been watching me very carefully. He knew when… when I understood that I wasn’t getting out. I know I prayed… but all I knew was that his was the power to end it; to grant me salvation. He was … the only _hope_ I had, you see. I prayed and I _begged_ … and it was the only thing he wanted. The whole point of the torture! Not to punish me, but to elevate himself. Not a king – a _god_ with the power to raise from the hell of his own creation. He promised me death, and I prayed for my reward… And there’s a part of me that cannot forgive myself for it.”

Matt must’ve heard the triphammer of her heart, or the startling of her muscles - the fingers of his free hand were unerringly brushing at her mouth even before she opened it.

"Shhh... don't. Please.” His hand slid down, "He stripped it all. Not just flesh; I forgot God, I forgot myself. Nothing existed outside the pain, except Fisk. In the end, there was only him - his words, his promises. It felt like... _kindness_," the last word was spat out, and Matt dropped his head to his chest with the force of it, hunching over, fading into the shadow. Karen's gut churned with appalled hatred and futility; the desecration he suffered filling and blocking her chest, making her wheeze. She stared at his wrist, turned up on her lap, the flannel ribbon still failing to protect him.

"I don't know if I still believe in God's plan. I do what I do because I believe it is the right thing to do, to find justice for those who are failed by the system. Or never reach it. I believe I help people more than... I hurt and let down. I don't know if it is what I am meant to do, or if I am just another fighter in a free-for-all, with Him as the scorekeeper. Or, maybe, He doesn't even bother to do that. I try not to think about it too much now. Back then though... After Mrs Cardenas died, I went after Fisk. I went to kill him. Did you know that?"

She squeezed the words out, "Yeah, Foggy told me. He found you that night..."

Matt nodded, "It was a trap. I didn't kill him because I got my ass handed to me. And then, when his people shot up the FBI to help him escape... I had another chance, but I didn't take that either. I was sure that's not what God wanted from me, no matter how much I desired it, but that's not what stopped me. I didn't want Fisk to break who I was... who I thought I was... who I needed to be. I let him live. And he managed to do it anyway."

"Matt, no... You are here. You got back up. You are - you. He damaged you, but he didn't break you. Not for good. Not forever." She was babbling and, judging from his sad smile, they both knew it.

She didn't let him stop her this time, "It wasn't your failure."

His lips tightened, but so did her fingers.

"That woman, who you helped escape her torturer, did she blame herself for what happened to her? Could you tell?"

Matt lowered his head again, and she saw three drops fall down onto his lap and a fitful shift of his larynx, before he raised a hand to his face.

* * *

He slept that night, but this did not surprise Karen. By the time she coaxed him into bed - the collar of her blouse wet and heavy, her arms stiff from being pressed around him - he was nearly swaying with mental and emotional exhaustion.

The silence that surrounded him for most of the next day, which even Foggy had commented on, did not surprise her either.

She dreaded the second night, and barely slept herself, drifting just below the surface when he twisted and jerked up beside her. She _was_ surprised that he did not launch himself out of bed, as he usually did, riding the high of the nightmare-driven adrenaline, siphoning it into Daredevil’s fists. Instead, he remained sitting with his back to her, the crushed silk sheet twined around his legs, sweat cooling on his arms and bowed shoulders and neck. 

Karen reached up and skimmed her fingers just above his skin, and he turned his head towards her. She settled her hand on his bicep, applied gentle friction, and he shifted with it, following her hand, laying back down on his side beside her and draping his arm over her. She could barely believe her ears when she heard his breath even out, grow deeper, his muscles twitching then calming. There was a line between his brows, his face far from peaceful, but he was asleep again.

He remained that way till morning.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you are wondering what pattern Karen used, it's the Strappado (NSFW - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVU5-Bg-mHE&t=220s). She had plans to combine it with a leg tie to actually incapacitate him, but his response told her that just the arms were enough. Arguably, too much already.
> 
> One more part of the series is still coming.
> 
> Comments are REALLY appreciated :)


End file.
